Discovering the adversary, one day at a time

Military History

March 03, 2013

"Railing against military incompetence and intelligence failures is no substitute for constructing a policy that recognizes the limitations of armed force and espionage. Though they lack the dramatic appeal of air raids and secret agents, diplomacy and law enforcement must be the cornerstones of any successful attempt to contain international terrorism."

When was this written? Hint: Highlight the spacee underneath the line.

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1989

Source: Best Laid Plans: The Inside Story of America's War Against Terrorism (Martin and Walcott)

April 01, 2009

At Long War Journal recent reports by Bill Roggio and Thomas Joscelyn highlight the the current state of Somalia. Both reports made me recall a small analytical report I wrote up at the end of 2006. I'm sharing a draft of a December 2006 update. The update contains information on the then-active war between Ethiopia and the Islamic Courts Union.

Please note: this is a working draft reformatted for this post, and lacks my footnotes and sources.

In June 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) took control over Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia. ICU is a radical Islamist militia with close ties to Al Qaeda, which supports the establishment of Islamic law in Somalia. Since the seizure of Mogadishu, the ICU has expanded its control over much of the rest of Somalia, enforcing Islamic law, bringing in weapons, and setting up training camps for its forces. With its explicit support for Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda’s regional goals, the ICU poses a considerable threat to Western interests in Africa, as well as to regional governments. Particularly, Somalia’s strategic location along the east coast of Africa poses a significant threat to military and maritime traffic in the Red Sea, as it may provide an operational safe haven for Al Qaeda to plan and execute attacks on oil and natural gas infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region.

Significance of Somalia’s Location

Somalia’s strategic location along the east coast of Africa poses a significant threat to maritime interests and regional governments. Al Qaeda strategists are beginning to show interest in the region as a long-term strategic base of operations. For example, Al Qaeda leadership has publicly called for i) attacks on Gulf-based energy infrastructure and shipping; and ii) support for the ICU, as regularly mentioned in its public videos.

Somalia’s key location provides Al Qaeda not only an easy access to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, but also an operational safe haven for terrorists to plan and carry out attacks on oil and natural gas infrastructure in the region. Somalia has potential to become a logistical and strategic support center for terrorist activity across Africa. It will compound the already chaotic situation throughout the continent, involving volatile mix of smuggling and piracy along the coast.

The following is a chronology of recent terrorist activities involving Somalia and the region:

Recent Terrorist Activities Involving Somalia

2006 July Osama bin Laden released an audiotape praising the ICU. 2005 July Somali expatriates were suspects in attempted bombings in London.2005 January A Somalia national was arrested and sentenced in Kuwait for participating in a series of attacks. 2002 The Al Qaeda field commander responsible for the embassy attacks fled to Somalia and is suspected of being the commander of the 2002 Mombasa operations against Israeli tourists. 1996-1998 Several Al Qaeda attacks in East Africa, including U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.1993 Islamist-backed Somalis, funded by a nascent Al Qaeda, attacked U.S. forces in Mogadishu.

ICU and Its Leadership

ICU came to prominence in 2004 as the political situation in Somalia deteriorated and the newly elected government was forced to flee to neighboring Kenya. President Abdullah Yusef, leader of Somalia’s traditional parliament, continues to operate a government in exile. Ethiopia is the only strategic counterweight to ICU support in the region and a key supporter of the Yusef regime, which is now located in Baidoa, Somalia.

ICU supports the strict imposition of Islamic law, and since its inception, the group has prevented the return of the Somalia government, and has threatened jihad against regional peacekeepers. It began instituting Islamic law as early as 2004 when it began closing down movie theaters and other recreational facilities they deemed unIslamic.

ICU has two leaders: Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. Sheikh Sharif Shekh Ahmed founded the ICU in 2003 when he felt compelled to seek justice in the kidnapping of a student at his Islamic school. In 2005, Ahmed explicitly stated the organization’s goals to demonstrators in Mogadishu: “the only solution is to adopt the…Islamic laws.” Since its inception, the ICU has prevented the return of Somalia’s internationally recognized government and has threatened jihad against regional peacekeepers.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was once head of Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), a radical Islamist group founded in the 1990s through the influence of Osama bin Laden, then located in Sudan. Since September 11th, AIAI has been placed on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups and has been the focus of western counterterrorism efforts. He also has a possible connection to the 2005 UK attacks. A London Times report has United Nations officials identifying U.S. and UK agents following members of AIAI and the Egyptian group al-Takfir wa al-Hijra (ATWAH) in the wake of the July 7th London bombings.

Current Situation

In May 2006, ICU militias drove their rivals from Mogadishu. Since then, the rivals have relented in their fight, further empowering the ICU. The situation continues to be fluid, but it is clear now that the ICU is the only group in control of Mogadishu and its environs. Without clear rivals, the ICU is the only authority in the country. According to a recent Associated Press report, the ICU has surrounded the compound of the internationally recognized government in Baidoa, Somalia. Ethiopian forces are poised to defend the recognized government, but U.S. officials recognize that the ICU has the advantage.

The ICU receives funds and support from a large expatriate community. A U.S. State Department official recently testified that money and weapons come from Eritrea and Yemen, and that “some of the funds came from Somali businessmen based in Saudi Arabia.” Another recent report notes that Sheikh Aweys travels abroad “quite freely – to Saudi Arabia and Dubai, without being arrested. ICU leadership refuses to accept United Nations or regional African relief services or any peacekeeping missions. The humanitarian situation in Somalia continues to deteriorate, including a steady stream of reports of brutal enforcement of Islamic law.

December Update: Since September 2006 ICU leadership has consolidated its control over key areas of the country outside of Baidoa where the internationally recognized Somali government is defended by Ethiopia’s military. Meanwhile, there were two assassination attempts targeting leaders of the recognized government using car bomb tactics regularly seen in Iraq. A recent United Nations (UN) report acknowledges the increasing presence of foreign fighters operating within the area of ICU control:

The ICU has established numerous military training facilities throughout central and southern Somalia and has been actively recruiting new Somali militia members. Foreign volunteers (fighters) have also been arriving in considerable numbers to give added military strength to the ICU. An unknown number of the volunteers, but believed … to be significant, have combat experience gained from participation in wars and hostile conflicts and actions in the Middle East and Asia…

[F]oreign volunteers also provide training in guerrilla warfare and special topics or techniques consisting of bomb making and the use of bombs against different targets such as a variety of different types of transport and buildings. Other techniques include kidnapping and the conduct of assassination by ambush and sniping… [T]he ICU is fully capable of turning Somalia into what is currently an Iraq-type scenario, replete with roadside and suicide bombers, assassinations and other forms of terrorist and insurgent-type activities.

In December ICU leadership rejected UN requests for talks and has threatened war with Ethiopia unless Ethiopian troops leave Baidoa.

The African Advantage

In June 2006, Sada al-Jihad (Echo of Jihad), a Saudi-based jihad periodical, published an article by Al Qaeda strategist, Abu Azzam al-Ansari, exploring the possibility and advantages of a strategy for Africa. The following table summarizes the 13 advantages:

Al-Ansari's 13 Advantages to Expanding Al Qaeda Operation

1 “Jihadi doctrines” are well entrenched in most predominantly Muslim countries. This jihadi expansion has old roots in many of the African countries.2 The general chaos and corruption found throughout the continent which eases “the ability of the Mujahidin to move and plan and organize themselves…”3 Tribal and geopolitical conflicts produce “groups and individuals willing to heroically [sacrifice] themselves.”4 [Similar to #2]5 General chaotic conditions “provide [a] huge amount of weapons and military equipment easy to obtain…”6 Western interests use Africa’s “maritime routes” to transfer weapons and equipment” and “use these routes to shift oil to the rest of the world. Targeting these routes will be fatal for the Crusaders…”7 “Africa is also one of the closer routes to Palestine…”8 Africa’s poverty offers opportunities to offer “finance and welfare” programs.9 Educated Africans could be recruited for the jihad.10 Africa’s large Muslim population is predominantly Sufi, a group considered to be easier to work with than “any other trend, such as the Shi’is or the Communists.”11 Specific local conflicts pit “true Muslims against rivals, including the “potential of the renewal of the conflict in Egypt.”12 “Another advantage is he links to Europe through North Africa, what eases the move from there to carry out attacks.”13 “Africa is rich in economic sources, oil and raw materials. This is very useful for the Mujahidin in the medium and long term.

August 11, 2008

I recently had the pleasure of returning to the pile of misfit pictures at the Library of Congress Photodupe room in the Adams building. There I found this picture of three American soldiers and what appears to be some, er, rather subdued Philippine "natives" probably during the Spanish American War.

This image reminded of a passage in Robert Kaplan's book Imperial Grunts where he talks about how the American military has for most of its history been a military in foreign lands (I forget the exact phrase he uses), ie "Injun Country." Or in this case three young fellers in a way off country at the dawn of our global dominance.

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Oh, if you're curious about the LC pile. They're all historical, no cost (or a dollar or two) and copyright free. According to the keeper in the Photodupe room, they're all going to be tossed sooner rather than later, because he can't stand to look at them anymore.

June 06, 2008

Oxford University Press sends librarians notice of its upcoming books, including this one:

Crossed Swords: Pakistan, its Army, and the Wars WithinBy Shuja Nawaz

"Using many hitherto unpublished materials from the archives of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army, as well as interviews with key military and political figures in Pakistan and the United States, he sheds light not only on the Pakistan Army and its US connections but also on Pakistan as a key Muslim country in one of the world's toughest neighborhoods."

May 13, 2008

One of the essential sources of Islamic military doctrine is SK Malik's Quranic Concept of War. Malik, a Pakistani brigadier general, wrote Concept in 1979. Malik's work was deemed so significant that the Indian military use it to train their officers. Joseph C. Myer's 2006 review of Concept in the military journal Parameters is an important introduction to this important work.

As a part of my own research, I explored some of Malik's sources, listed in its bibliography. One of those sources is Hamidullah's 1953 work The Muslim Concept of State. I scanned several chapters of the book and made them available on my website. However, a dawah site in Canada is working to make the entire book available, chapter by chapter. Insha' allah.

I've linked both to my work and the "muslim-canada" site on the right.

May 12, 2008

For decades it appeared that radical, leftist academia had triumphed utterly in practically every discipline of the humanities and social sciences. But nothing lasts forever. I see here and there little signs of life in the resistance to its influence whether it is the recent establishment of ASMEA (see Bernard Lewis' address to the first annual conference) or the ongoing response to weak, ineffectual military history highlighted at the Chicago Boyz blog:

Looked at from the perspective of what the academics are doing, it sure looks bleak. But that is only part of the picture. I believe it is an increasingly irrelevant part of the picture. In fact, I don’t know how much good it would do to have the current population of academia teaching this history.

February 01, 2007

There's a remarkable "review essay" in the most recent issue of Parameters, the US Army War College journal. It's a review of Quranic Concept of War, a book written by Pakistani General S.K. Malik, and published in 1979. Unfortunately, the book is only available through major library institutions.

Drawing from primary source material, the review is remarkable because it is one of the first honest assessments (in open source) of enemy thinking on war, including this remarkable passage:

Malik identifies the center of gravity in war as the “human heart, [man’s] soul, spirit, and Faith.” Note that Faith is capitalized, meaning more than simple moral courage or fortitude. Faith in this sense is in the domain of religious and spiritual faith; this is the center of gravity in war. The main weapon against this Islamic concept of center of gravity is “the strength of our own souls . . . [keeping] terror away from our own hearts.” In terms of achieving decisive and direct decisions preparing for this type of battlefield first requires “creating a wholesome respect for our Cause”—the cause of Islam. This “respect” must be seeded in advance of war and conflict in the minds of the enemies. Malik then introduces the informational, psychological, or perception management concepts of warfare. Echoing Sun Tzu, he states, that if properly prepared, the “war of muscle,” the physical war, will already be won by “the war of will.”55 “Respect” therefore is achieved psychologically by, as Brohi suggested earlier, “beautiful” and “handsome ways” or by the strategic application of terror.

When examining the theme of the preparatory stage of war, Malik talks of the “war of preparation being waged . . . in peace,” meaning that peacetime preparatory activities are in fact part of any war and “vastly more important than the active war.” This statement should not be taken lightly, it essentially means that Islam is in a perpetual state of war while peace can only be defined as the absence of active war. Malik argues that peace-time training efforts should be oriented on the active war(s) to come, in order to develop the Quranic and divine “Will” in the mujahid. When armies and soldiers find limited physical resources they should continue and emphasize the development of the “spiritual resources” as these are complimentary factors and create synergy for future military action.

Malik’s most controversial dictum is summarized in the following manner: in war, “the point where the means and the end meet” is in terror. He formulates terror as an objective principal of war; once terror is achieved the enemy reaches his culminating point. “Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose . . . .” Malik’s divine principal of Islamic warfare may be restated as “strike terror; never feel terror.” The ultimate objective of this form of warfare “revolves around the human heart, [the enemies] soul, spirit, and Faith.”56 Terror “can be instilled only if the opponent’s Faith is destroyed . . . . It is essential in the ultimate analysis, to dislocate [the enemies] Faith.” Those who are firm in their religious conviction are immune to terror, “a weak Faith offers inroads to terror.” Therefore, as part of preparations for jihad, actions will be oriented on weakening the non-Islamic’s “Faith,” while strengthening the Islamic’s. What that weakening or “dislocation” entails in practice remains ambiguous. Malik concludes, “Psychological dislocation is temporary; spiritual dislocation is permanent.” The soul of man can only be touched by terror.57

November 13, 2006

Years ago I worked with a man named Tom who was involved in Operation Eagle Claw, Delta Force's first operation. It was the risky and ultimately failed attempt (at Desert One) to rescue the US hostages in Tehran. I asked him to recommend a book about Desert One, and he suggested Best Laid Plans. I remembered the title after 9-11, and vowed to get a copy. Knowing that it was probably out of print, I started looking for an old, used copy on the internet: It's still available through Amazon.

Of the bureaucrats, technocrats, pundits, and neocons mentioned, some appear to have never retired, and still play an active role in DC government and punditry: Buckley, Bush, Christopher, Eagleburger, Fukuyama, Gates, Gergen, Leahy, Ledeen, Lott, Rumsfeld, Specter, and Wolfowitz show up. And there is a list of bureaucratic blunders, political in-fights, Agency failures, and internal Administration struggles, to inspire a reader to wonder whether we will ever learn.

Reports and studies after the hostage crisis noted that the CIA' ground capabilities in Iran were awful. We had no assets and were unable to accurately access the situation on the ground. Sound familiar?

Our special forces were understaffed, underfunded, and under-supported. Sound familiar?

And there's even sneaky, leak-happy Democrats in Congress. Sound familiar?

It's like we're living through a deeply distorted, ominous Groundhog Day. This passage concludes the chapter on Desert One:

The United States had the Delta force, but it did not have a strategy for combatting terrorism. The Pentagon had an unparalleled group of shooters but that was all it had. Delta had none of the support mechanisms --intelligence, logistics —- it needed to become an effective combat unit. Confronted with the task of developing a plan for rescuing the hostages in Tehran, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had, in the words of the Holloway Commission, "to start literally from the beginning to ... create an organization, provide a staff, develop a plan, select the units, and train the force before the first mission capability could be obtained."

It had taken half a year to assemble and train the rescue force. The failure of the mission had been the fault not of the men who conducted it but of the men who had thrown them together. It was perhaps understandable, given the short rations and low esteem accorded the military and the intelligence community in the years following Vietnam, but it was a failure nevertheless. "We should have had the capability already," "Shy" Meyer said. "We were derelict in not having the capability."

In the end, the combined military and intelligence capabilities of the world's most powerful nation contributed little to the resolution of the hostage crisis. In the end, events over which the Carter administration had absolutely no control forced the Iranians to negotiate. On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran and started what would become the bloodiest conflict since World War II. With its national survival at stake, Iran needed money and weapons more than it needed hostages. Specifically, Iran needed the billions of dollars which sat in American banks, frozen by order of the Carter administration and the billions of dollars worth of U.S. military equipment the Shah had bought but which was now locked up in American warehouses.

As the American presidential election approached, the Iranians apparently decided that they would get a better deal before the election than after, that a President fighting for his political life was more likely to compromise than one assured of four years in office. In their first official approach to the United States, the Iranians specified that an agreement to terminate the crisis be worked out by November 4, 1980.

Once events presented Carter with an opening, he capitalized on it in admirable fashion, stubbornly refusing to compromise on any matters of principle, refusing, for instance, to lift the arms embargo against Iran. In their haste to settle, the Iranians accepted a bad deal—agreeing to the return of $8 billion of the $12 billion in assets that had been frozen.

But nothing in the fine print of the agreement could conceal the fact that for fourteen months American foreign policy had been paralyzed and a presidential campaign overshadowed by the hostages. Each day had added to the perception of American impotence and, after the failed rescue mission, incompetence. The United States could not afford to let that happen again, and Ronald Reagan set out to see that it wouldn't.

September 07, 2006

Islamists consistently rely on examples from Islamic history and biography to draw conclusions on current day events, and to answer questions about the legitimacy of current-day behavior. Studying the biographies of "right-guided" men (especially Mohammed's "Companions," or Salafis) is a common feature on many popular Islamist forums.

On July 29, a jihadist website participant posted a commentary on Al-Zawahiri's most recent video:

[Al-Zawahiri] 'We cannot just stand idly by in humiliation while we see all these shells fall on our brothers in Gaza and Lebanon. How can we remain silent while we are the sons of Abu-Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Hamzah, Ja'far, Ali, Al-Husayn, Sa'd, Khalid, Talhah, Al-Zubayr, Ikrimah, Salah-al-Din, Yusuf Bin-Tashfin, and Muhammad al-Fatih [names of caliphs and Prophet Muhammad's companions]. We are the sons of those who fought the apostates, conquered the world, moved the people from the darkness of polytheism to the light of monotheism and from worshipping slaves to worshipping the God of slaves, put out the fire of the Magians, and conquered Constantinople. We are back to the field again, with the favor of God.'

[Commentary] When we stated our Islamic confession to the Exalted Almighty that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet, we declared our disbelief in all forms of tyranny and all forms of legislation other than Allah's. By so doing we have moved to God's guidance and light as a form of pure submission to God's rule and wisdom. At that time we understood what Islam was and we established jihad for the sake of Allah. From us came Abu-Bakr, Omar, Osman, Hamzah, Ja'afar, Ali, Al-Husayn, Sa'ad, Khalid, Talhah, Al-Zubayr, Akramah, Salah Al-Din, Yusuf Bin-Tashfin, and Muhammad Al-Fatih. Through these ranks we have demolished the global polytheism represented in Persia and the Roman Empire, and now the Islamic nation is witnessing a rebirth, and you have to wait for names similar to the aforementioned to come soon.

January 25, 2006

Saudi TV recently interviewed a "former" mujahid who had trained at the Afghan camps. I don't doubt the brief details given in this MEMRI translation. The terrorists's descriptions of the camps are in line with just about every other description I've read. However, what's interesting (at least to me) is the constant emphasis on theological-based planning. In this case the goal of the camps was to create a core body of mujahideen who would fight with the power of Allah on their side:

I was offered to stay in Afghanistan, as one of the individuals who carry the banner of Islam, and to become a soldier in an army that would constitute the core of Islam. This was based on a Hadith that has become their motto: "An army of 12,000 fighters will never be defeated." The brothers in Afghanistan wanted to build an army of 12,000 fighters who would constitute the core of Islam, to whom Allah would grant victory.

Everything is considered, planned with a fiqh in mind. I don't know which fiqh, perhaps it's Al Qaeda's own fiqh. Has anyone ever analyzed this body of jurisprudence in its totality?